A heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system can be used to control the environment of a building. For example, an HVAC system can be used to control the air temperature, humidity, and/or air quality of a building.
One of the major energy consumers of an HVAC system is a boiler (e.g., boiler plant). Reducing the energy consumption of the boiler of an HVAC system can reduce the energy consumption, and therefore reduce the operational cost, of the HVAC system.
The energy consumption of a boiler plant may depend on the set points of the boiler, such as the supply water temperature and the pump speed, for example. In previous approaches, the set points of the boiler may be fixed (e.g., may not change during operation of the boiler), or may be determined (e.g., changed during operation of the boiler) based on reset curves (e.g., based on the outside air temperature) or an estimate of the current heat demand of the HVAC system and/or building.
However, fixing the boiler set points or determining the boiler set points based on reset curves may be ineffective at reducing the energy consumption of the boiler. Further, determining the boiler set points based on a current heat demand estimate may be difficult, as the availability of the information needed to do so may be limited.